MUSICAL WEEKEND IN HITZACKER - FEBRUARY 24-27, 2005

(Old age is fast creeping up on me and usually I can live with it but sometimes I get really angry at myself, such as two weeks ago when I went off for the weekend WITHOUT MY CAMERA!!! The few pictures you see here were taken off the internet just so I could show you something. I'm sure you are as sad as I am about the 50 or so pictures that are missing.)

One of the very nice things Frank received last year for his 60th birthday (from Almut and Werner and Anne and Ingo) was a weekend in Hitzacker during the winter music festival with tickets to two concerts - TWO tickets to two concerts, which meant I could tag along. So it was as much a present to me as to him and I didn't even have to become older to get it.

The weekend began for me on Thursday morning when Almut and Werner picked me up on their way from Freiburg where they had been visiting Editha. They had said they would be here around 9:00 and at the stroke of nine the doorbell rang. I accused them of having sat outside and waited until nine to impress me with their punctuality. (I don't think I will hurt their feelings when I mention that this is not a characteristic that springs to mind when they are mentioned.)

The trip to Lüneburg was unusual in that there was almost no traffic once we got beyond Frankfurt. Maybe it was the time of day or the threat of snow that kept everyone off the roads, but whatever it was it was very pleasant. And the weather was beautiful, sunny without a cloud in the sky, at least until we reached Soltau (just south of Lüneburg) when it clouded over and even snowed a little - or maybe it was just the snow falling from the trees. Actually the stretch of forest we drove through looked magical. (Did I mention I didn't have my camera?)

We were in Lüneburg just after 3 pm and Almut and Werner dropped me off at Mary Ellen's so I could spend the first part of the weekend with her. Actually it wasn't really the weekend yet but since she has no school on Fridays this half year, it might as well have been. Mary Ellen is an excellent cook and the meal she prepared Thursday evening was wonderful. We first had salad greens with prunes that had been wrapped in bacon and baked in the oven, it all sprinkled with chopped walnuts and a delicious vinaigrette. The main course was sliced eggplant baked with goat's cheese on top and a spicy tomato sauce to go with it. (I have to remember to try that myself this weekend.) Dessert was luscious but I don't really know what to call it. It had buttermilk and Philadelphia cheese with gelatin and a sauce made of raspberries. Divine! And I might add that she baked blueberry muffins for breakfast. I can still taste them!

Friday was our shopping day. This time we decided to go into Lüneburg and not make the trip to Hamburg. It had been a while since I was in Lüneburg (where we lived for about 20 years) and it's always interesting to see how things have changed.

                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                
                                                                                                               
The old town hasn't changed.
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
Our shopping spree wasn't very successful, but I did buy a pair of boots and a pair of shoes. And realistically I didn't have room in my suitcase for anything more.

Friday afternoon Mary Ellen dropped me off at Almut and Werner's in time for coffee. Anne was already there, but without Ingo who had to forego the whole weekend because of a concert rehearsal that he had to take part in. He was very unhappy about it and we missed him, but some things can't be changed. Almut had invited Sylvia and Henning for dinner so that our Poland biking group was together again, or almost anyway (no Ingo). And she also invited Erika and Ingo, with whom Frank and I have gone on two biking vacations in Italy. So we at least had an Ingo to replace the Ingo who couldn't come! Alas, Erika couldn't come either because she had suddenly fallen ill. What a shame, I was looking forward to seeing her. And then finally at about 11:30 pm Frank arrived. He had been in Munich until 5 pm and then caught a train to Lüneburg. We were very relieved when he called to say he had managed to catch it because the next one would have put him in Lüneburg at 1:30 am! He missed most of the delicious dinner that Almut prepared for us under the motto of "America meets Old Europe", America represented by the main course which included the ingredients peanut butter and corn and was called American in one of Almut's cookbooks. It wasn't anything I had ever eaten before but it was very nice and I even thought the peanuts in the crunchy peanut butter she used were pine nuts.

Hitzacker is about 45 minutes from Lüneburg by car and of course we had been there before, many years ago when we still lived in the area. Then it was at the very edge of the known universe, directly on the Elbe River which separated East from West. I guess the Elbe was the Iron Curtain. Practically surrounded on three sides by the German Democratic Republic the area was not a tourist Mecca in spite of its beauty, but the lack of industry and tourism lasting almost 50 years meant that it remained a nature reserve that is unusual in modern Germany.

                                                                              
                                                                              
                                                                              
             Hitzacker
                                                                              
Anyway the next morning the five of us piled into Almut and Werner's new (well, pretty new - they've had it for less than a year) VW Touran and headed for Hitzacker in order to go to the Gala Concert at 11 am. We were very lucky, for although it had snowed quite a bit the roads were clear and we made good time. The concert was part of the Hitzacker Music Week that is held every winter (this was the 19th time) as a supplement to the Music Festival held every summer. The organizer is Ludwig Güttler, a very well known trumpet player, and tickets sell out weeks, if not months in advance.

The concert was very nice but I'm not going to try to critique it and inadvertently show my almost complete ignorance in things musical. I can tell you what was played: Johann Sebastian Bach's Overture Nr. 1 in C-major, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's Concert for Flute and Orchestra in D-minor and Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony Nr. 2 in D-minor Opus 36. Yes, I can hear all of you humming the pieces already!

Directly after the concert we hopped back into the car because Werner had scheduled a tour of a palace for us, "Ludwigslust", and during the winter season there is only one tour a week at 2 pm on Saturday. It was built at the beginning of the 18th century as a summer residence, mainly for hunting, but later was added on to and used as the main residence of a Grand Duke. It was not kept up at all by the East German government and was in fact used for offices for the local bureaucrats. Shortly after the fall of the iron curtain Frank and I drove there with our English friend Jane to have a look at it. It wasn't officially open but we managed to sneak in and look around a little before someone came and threw us out. It was in terrible shape and the contrast to its present condition is astounding.

                                      Now just imagine a lot of snow on the ground.
                                                                              
We had a very good guided tour of the rooms that are open to the public, not at all dry or overly laden with historical facts about noble families I have never heard of, but I really don't remember much detail to report here. (Too bad for you. I know you are disconsolate.) What I do remember is that the nobility here, just as in Schwerin where I was first introduced to these devices, was short of cash and had to take some short cuts when decorating their palaces. For example, what might look like Italian marble may be a really good paint job or a statue may be made of papier-mâché.
After the tour we went in search of the café, which had moved from the palace itself to the "Schweizerhaus" in the park. (Another example of cost cutting - build a house that looks like what you think a Swiss chalet probably looks like and scratch all those skiing trips to Switzerland.) The park was beautiful in all the snow and there I stood without my camera. (O.K. I won't mention it again, but it was really painful.) It was also large enough to get lost in, which we promptly did.

                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                            
Finally, a snow picture! We actually walked along this canal but unfortunately it was the wrong direction.
                                                                                                               
The café when we finally found it was lovely, warm and cozy, especially when it started snowing outside, big puffy snowflakes that make winter so magical until you actually have to go outside. But then the snow stopped just as we left, reinforcing my impression that nothing could go wrong this wonderful weekend.
We headed back to Hitzacker to check in at our hotel and arranged to meet for dinner, which lasted until none of us could pretend any longer that we weren't tired.

                                                                              
                                                                              
                                                                              
Parkhotel, Hitzacker

                                                                              
                                                                              
                                                                              
Actually, I think the empty table was the one assigned to us.
                                                                            
On Sunday morning after a looong breakfast we walked into town for our second concert at one of the local churches. It was Johann Sebastian Bach's cantata "Ein fester Burg ist unser Gott" and Güttler gave an introduction to it before they played (and sang) it. I always like concerts with introductions to the music, although I have to admit that some of it was over my head. It always reminds me of the concert series that the Savannah Symphony Orchestra played for students six times a year when I was still in school. It really helps me to appreciate what I hear although I'm sure it would be boring to a lot of the music-knowledgeable Germans.
After the concert we went for a walk through Hitzacker, a lovely little town but very, very cold that day. However, we were being looked after because we found an English café that had just opened the week before and sat there with our English tea watching once again huge snowflakes falling from above.

                                                                              
One last time, imagine the snow. It's another form of brain-jogging.
                                                                              
We left for Lüneburg and were back in time to enjoy some of the leftovers from our Friday evening meal (Did I mention the fantastic cheese platter? Or the delicious Brussels sprouts soup?) before Almut and Werner drove Anne and me to the train station for the trip home. (Frank stayed in Adendorf to play music since he had to be in Hameln the next day anyway.) It really shortened the trip for me to have Anne next to me for the first part, even if it wasn't very far to Celle. But then the weekend was officially over with lots of wonderful memories for more quiet times.